Stories
Other losses
For grief that does not fit neatly into a category, friends, grandparents, beloved animals, and more.
My boat
MarcAugust 2026
My best friend Hennie died by suicide two years ago. I was angry with him for a long time. That's difficult to admit because after someone dies people seem more comfortable hearing that you miss them than hearing that you're angry with them. But I really was angry. I was angry that he didn't call me. Angry that I hadn't realised how bad things were. Angry at other people. Angry at myself. Underneath all of it, I missed my friend. Hennie and I used to go for long drives, fishing, camping. We'd get coffee, put music on and drive until we found a place and then enjoy a nice dop or two. A few months ago I did it again for the first time. Found myself on the road, grabbed a coffee and went fishing. It wasn't the same. I guess it's never going to be. I talked to him out loud for most of the drive. Probably looked completely mad at the traffic lights. I still get angry sometimes. But flip, I remember the Hennie I knew. The way I liked to remember him.I guess, the drives and coffee and every time I catch a fish, it's hard not to think of him.How I honour them
My ex-husband died last year.
ElenaAugust 2026
My ex-husband died last year. We had been divorced for six years.I've found this grief difficult to explain because people knew we weren't together anymore. Some people seemed genuinely surprised that his death affected me as much as it did. But he was part of my life for fifteen years. We grew up together in many ways. We bought our first house together. We had our daughter together. There were good years and difficult years and eventually we realised we couldn't stay married. None of that meant I stopped caring whether he existed in the world. When he died, I grieved the person he was, but I also grieved for our daughter and all the things he will miss. I have photographs of the three of us that I hadn't looked at since the divorce. I've started putting some into an album for her.I'm not rewriting our marriage into something it wasn't. There were definitely reasons we divorced. But there was love there once too and she deserves to have that part of her story.I'm making our daughter an album of photographs from when we were still a family of three.How I honour them
I'm grieving too
AnonymousJune 2026
I'm not sure I'm allowed to post here because my grief doesn't fit the categories. I lost my best friend of thirty years. She was not a relative or partner, but the person who knew me best in the world. People sent me a card and expected me to be over it in a few weeks, because "she was just a friend.” But she was not just anything to me. We met the first day of High School and have been friends ever since. We had been through everything together, University, break-ups, marriages, pregnancy, divorce. Seeing a therapist has been an amazing outlet for me. And one thing I want to share is, if your loss doesn’t fit in a box, it’s irrelevant. It’s still grief and it still counts. Because you loved that person and they are not here anymore. You are allowed to grieve and you are allowed to be in your feels, for as long as you need to.I adopted a rescue dog and named her Coco. It was my best friend's favourite perfume.How I honour them
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